9 movie corpses who totally stole the show: from Saw to Clue to Weekend at Bernies

​They're dead and we're loving it.

By
Dominic Preston

01/09/2016

Daniel Radcliffe is jerking tears and dazzling the screen right now in the wonderful Swiss Army Man, where he plays a farting corpse. It's good to see that he's truly letting go of Harry Potter and taking himself seriously (but seriously – he's actually great in it).

Here are some of cinema's other charismatic corpses (farting or otherwise) that proved you don't need a heartbeat to steal the show - and no, zombies don't count.

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1. Weekend at Bernie's

20th Century Fox

Undoubtedly the big daddy of the (admittedly niche) corpse comedy genre. This cult classic about a pair of insurance brokers who try to pretend that their dead boss is, well, not, has been so widely referenced that it's a cultural touchstone for everyone, whether they've seen it or not. Like Citizen Kane, but for corpses.

2. Psycho

Paramount

Hope you don't mind spoilers for a 56-year-old movie, because there are basically two moments in Psycho nobody forgets: the shower scene, and dear old Mrs Bates, mummified and preserved in her Sunday best. We think it'd be fair to say she's creepy as all hell, and her reveal remains one of Hitchcock's finest jump scares yet.

3. Little Miss Sunshine

20th Century Fox

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What starts off as a straight-forward(ish) family road trip takes a turn for the macabre when lovely old Grandpa Edwin dies of a heroin overdose. Which is bad enough, until the rest of the family have to smuggle his body out of hospital and past the police – with a little help from some porno mags. Bonus points for featuring Paul Dano, Radcliffe's Swiss Army Man co-star, proving there's still life in dead body jokes.

4. Saw

Lionsgate

When is a corpse not a corpse? When it's secretly a terminal brain cancer patient who's become a serial killer named Jigsaw and imprisoned multiple people in an elaborate scheme that all hinges on his lying very, very still for a few hours while pretending to be dead. Look, no-one ever claimed Saw made a lot of sense, OK?

5. Rope

Warner Bros.

Though when it comes to Hitchcock's other famous corpse, slow suspense is the order of the day. The audience knows from the beginning that David Kentley has been killed, his body stuffed in a wooden chest. The only people who don't know are the dinner party guests, his friends and family, happily eating from that slightly peculiar looking buffet table.

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6. Tideland

THINKfilm

It's easy to imagine Terry Gilliam's Tideland was a heavy influence on Swiss Army Man. Jeff Bridges is the father-of-the-year candidate who dies of an overdose, leaving his young daughter to fend for herself. Sounds miserable, and it sort of is, but more than anything it gets very, very trippy as fantasy and reality blur together, leaving her chiding her dad's rotting corpse for his smell, swatting away flies, and asking when he'll be back 'from vacation'.

7. Clue

Paramount

Of all the board games you could adapt into a film, Cluedo at least makes sense (sorry, Battleship). There's a body (Mr Boddy, to be precise), a mansion, and six suspects with six weapons. From there it all gets a bit messy, with more murders, multiple endings, and a singing telegram. Currently in line for an unnecessary remake.

8. Shallow Grave

Gramercy Pictures

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Danny Boyle's directorial debut is yet another that uses a corpse to kick the plot in motion. In this case it's Hugo (Keith Allen), whose sudden death leaves his new flatmates with a suitcase full of money and a body to dispose of. Suffice it to say that dismembering a dead guy and burying him in the woods doesn't exactly agree with them, and things go downhill from there.

9. Stand By Me

Sony

What it lacks in actual screentime, this body makes up for in impact. The thought of seeing a real dead body is what sends the four kids at the heart of this Stephen King adaptation out into the woods, setting in motion the clashes with trains, leeches, and Kiefer Sutherland that make this one of the best coming of age films ever made.

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